


The Christmas Rose

by cycnus39



Category: Batman (Comics), Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:44:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cycnus39/pseuds/cycnus39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing is lost forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Christmas Rose

Everything was noise.

The Joker wouldn’t stop laughing.

The wind wouldn’t stop howling.

The bell wouldn’t stop ringing and-- The bell wouldn’t stop ringing!

Squinting open his eyes, he took in his dark bedroom, realised he was lying in bed with Clark sound asleep on top of him.

Perfect.

The howling wind was Clark breathing deep gusts in his ear.

The incessant ringing was the damn house phone.

Wriggling out from beneath Clark’s weight a little, he scowled through the darkness at the bedside cabinet that housed the telephone handset. It didn’t seem to be ringing that loudly now.

Damn phone.

Why had it only woken him?

In no mood to answer either that question or the still ringing phone, he settled back down under Clark and waited for the ringing to stop. Twenty seconds later, the phone was still going strong, so he pushed Clark’s slumbering body off him and lunged for the bedside cabinet, yanked open the drawer, snatched out the phone and pressed answer.

“What?”

“Merry Christmas, baby,” a warm, female voice said. “It’s time for...”

It was her.

It was really her.

She kept talking but he couldn’t hear the words, could barely hear her voice over the hammering of his heart, but he knew it was her. Even if he had never heard her voice since that night, had never watched a home movie or listened to one of his parents’ party tapes, he’d still know it was her. Always her.

“Mommy?” he managed to breathe, and she answered the way she always had, but it was wrong, all so wrong, and he couldn’t do this, couldn’t listen, threw the handset to the floor and watched it explode into a thousand pieces.

“Bruce!”

Clark was crouching protectively over him even before finishing his name and he found himself looking into Clark’s eyes as Clark’s fierce determination was replaced by tired confusion.

It wasn’t just him. The endless exhaustion of the past few days on the Klanrohar homeworld had left Clark barely able to function on anything higher than base instinct too.

“Sorry,” he said softly as the last shards of plastic and metal skittered under the bed.

“It’s okay.” Clark kissed him. “Come here.” Clark kissed him again while pulling him into a warm embrace and rolling over so he was using Clark’s chest as a pillow as they settled back down into the mattress. “You’ve killed the only phone in the room so we’re safe until Alfred wakes us for breakfast and presents,” Clark told him with a satisfied kiss on the top of his head, but, despite the steady beat of Clark’s heart by his ear and the reassuring feel of Clark’s hand stroking his back, he didn’t feel safe.

Hallucinations were nothing new, he had been prone to bouts since childhood, but he was normally keenly aware of them. No matter how impaired his rational thought processes were by illness, intoxicants or extreme exhaustion, a ruthless application of logic usually enabled him to identify and disregard any hallucination for what it was. It was a skill that had made it possible for him to overcome the manipulations of Crane and Tetch as well as the effects of almost any hallucinogen, so to suffer such a compelling hallucination without the influence of an outside force was...disturbing.

“Your heart’s still racing,” Clark said into his hair before kissing the top of his head again. “What’s wrong?”

He was drawing breath to answer when he heard something.

Music.

It was coming from downstairs, faint but somehow clear at the same time.

“Bruce? What’s--”

“Can’t you hear that?” he growled, sitting up to listen. It sounded like a familiar song, one he’d heard all his life but still, inexplicably, didn’t know.

“Hear what? I don’t--”

Laughter.

He could hear talking and laughter.

There were people downstairs.

Throwing off the covers, he rolled out of bed into the chilly air, strode over to the door and yanked it open, let the noise from the party flood the room.

He heard Clark talking to him, felt Clark move out of bed to follow him, but he paid no heed, just went off down the corridor to find out what the hell was going on.

As he turned to head down the first flight of stairs, he saw a procession of people walking up the steps from the entrance hall to cross the landing into the ballroom. All of them were wearing the costumes and masks for a Christmas masquerade, all of them except his parents.

He didn’t have any clear memories of his parents dressed for a Christmas party, but seeing them standing waiting for him on the ballroom landing, his father in his silk tuxedo and his mother in her glittering blue cocktail dress, felt right. Even if it was wrong.

“Hurry, baby, and we’ll have the first dance,” his mother called to him, and he rushed down the stairs to take her outstretched hand, was suddenly aware of wearing his own silk tuxedo as he followed her into the ballroom. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Clark, also in a silk tuxedo, walk up to his father and shake his father’s hand. Clark and his father then moved closer, began an intimate conversation he hadn’t a hope of overhearing through the party noise.

“Don’t worry about those two,” his mother said as they walked out onto the dance floor. “Your father is just being your father.”

He wanted to ask what was going on, how they were here, how it was all possible, but then he was facing his mother and she was holding his hand, touching his shoulder, so warm and real that he had to pull her close, had to hold her so tight he would never let her go again.

“Don’t cry, baby,” his mother soothed with the gentlest of kisses, the most loving touches. “I never left you. I could never leave you.”

He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, how much he missed her, but he could only lean into her touch, breathe in her love.

“You’re so beautiful. We’re both so proud of you,” his mother continued and he wanted to hold her closer, tighter, hold her forever. “Promise me you’ll let Clark love you, promise me you’ll never forget how much we love you.”

He wanted to answer but still couldn’t speak, could only nod, but she took his consent with a smile and a kiss.

“You’ll never be alone in the dark again, baby. Never again.”

As his mother spoke, the noise around them faded and then the people around them faded until he was standing with only his mother in the middle of the ballroom with the dawn painting the sky red behind him.

“You were looking for this,” she told him gently as her golden rose locket appeared in her hand. “I found it for you.” She offered it to him. “Take it.”

He shook his head, knowing she would disappear if he did.

“It’s time, baby,” she coaxed with a kiss. “Take it.”

He didn’t know if it was her kiss or her smile but he couldn’t refuse her, could never refuse her, slowly reached up and took the locket from her. Then he was alone, sitting naked on the ballroom floor looking down at the golden rose in his hand.

Under the warm dawn light, the petals of the locket were tinted a perfect pink and he’d never seen it look so real, so beautiful. Holding his breath, he eased apart the leaves on the stem, opened the locket and looked upon the small pictures of his parents and himself just as Clark came into the ballroom looking confused and miserable in a huddle of eiderdown quilt.

“I woke up and you were gone,” Clark grumped while walking over to him. “What are you doing down here?”

He couldn’t respond, didn’t know where to begin, was grateful when Clark sat down beside him and wrapped half the eiderdown around him in the warmest of hugs.

“You’re freezing,” Clark sighed and rubbed the cold from his back. “What made you come down here?”

“It’s my mother’s,” he said, showing Clark the locket. “She was going to wear it that night but she couldn’t find it, nobody could find it, so she wore the pearls instead.”

 

 

End


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